


Cause the Memories Keep Flooding my Mind, Baby I Can't Stop It

by alecmagnuslwb



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, F/M, abby's not in it alot but she was needed for what i was going for here, blink and you miss it fluff in the flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:14:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25935760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alecmagnuslwb/pseuds/alecmagnuslwb
Summary: They’ve got so much history behind them he’s not sure what to say she is to him anymore; no word seems to cover it all.
Relationships: John Constantine/Zatanna Zatara
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	Cause the Memories Keep Flooding my Mind, Baby I Can't Stop It

**Author's Note:**

> Writer’s month day 16, prompt: History
> 
> This is lowkey set during the current run issues of Justice League Dark, but that’s just cause it was fresh in my mind for the context of situation I needed to write this. 
> 
> Title taken from the song Nostalgia by Arizona.

John runs a hand through his hair and sighs looking down at Zee. She looks peaceful, just like she’s getting some well-deserved sleep.

The facts are that even though a mix of magic and modern science have purged the rot that had seeped into her from her veins she’s still swimming in it in her mind and there’s nothing they can do but wait while she rides it out.

There’s nothing he can do to save her from this particular temporary hell. As usual he feels like he’s failing her.

He reaches out holding her soft, cold hands in his rubbing his thumb along her knuckles where her fishnet gloves have torn. He brushes her bangs from her eyes with his other hand praying to gods he doesn’t believe in and that sure as shit don’t believe in him for her to wake up whole.

She’s strong his Zatanna, but that doesn’t mean seeing her lying on the ground with black sludge bleeding from her eyes and lips hadn’t scared the hell out of him.

“What is she to you?” Abby asks quietly from where she’s still watching over them in the shadowed corner, she’s still groggy and purging the rot from Zee hadn’t helped her shaky tracks of memory.

It’s a loaded question. It shouldn’t be, but with their history spanning years and continents, lives ruined, bloodshed it’s not easy to answer.

Girlfriend would have been an appropriate answer once upon a time, even though it always felt like a trite term to describe her, to describe them. Calling a powerful, goddess of a woman with enough magical know how behind her to level cities, worlds even with a few simple words his girlfriend always felt silly.

“Get your hands off my girlfriend!” he’d shouted as a pair of bloodsucking bastards had dared lay hands on her years ago.

They’d fought them off easily the magic between them weaving naturally even in those simpler days near the beginning when things were still bright and hopeful. When he wasn’t so goddamn jaded and she looked at him with eyes of love, not eyes of love and sadness swirling together.

“I can’t believe you just called me your girlfriend,” she said tangling their fingers together pulling him out of the wet, cobbled alleyway.

He just shrugged, pulling her in close by their joined hands.

“Well that’s what you are right?” he said pulling his cigarettes from his pocket attempting to light one one-handed.

She stopped them at the edge of the alley letting out a quick ‘erif’ under her breath, lighting the cigarette hanging loosely from his lips for him then pulling the pack and lighter from his hand.

“I guess so,” she said slipping the lighter into the near empty pack and then putting both in his pocket. “I guess it just feels so young, so high school. I feel like we’re more than that.”

She hadn’t elaborated, but he understood it. That feeling that even then they’d been through too much to use such simple terms as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Plus, it’s not like she’s been anything quite resembling his romantic partner in that way for a while now. Girlfriend has implications, implications that he hasn’t lived up to for far too long.

Partner could almost fit. Working side by side, partners in whatever the hell the world threw at them next. But partner also implied they were steady, solid. Thanks to him they’ve never been solid or steady for long.

Lover would just piss Zee off.

“Lover should only be said when the words veggie or meat are before it and it’s referring to a pizza,” she’d said scrunching up her nose in disgust when Felix Faust had once referred to her as John’s lover to her face.

They were strung upside down from the ceiling back to back and damn near death in the moment, but John couldn’t help but laugh at her response.

He contemplates saying it now just to see if the offending phrase would wake her right up out of this mess she’s in.

Friend would be bullshit, even to say best friend after all these years would be. Maybe when they first met for a moment in time they’d been something akin to friends, but from the moment he’d seen her on that stage, the magical woman of his dreams, he knew they could never just be friends. He’d always want more.

“So much for just friends,” she said her breathing still a little heavy, head turning on the pillow to look at him.

They were both sweaty and sated the moonlight pouring in over the dips and edges of her soft skin and the light bumps of his scars. Ten months without seeing each other, two days working a job together as “just friends” and there they’d landed in bed together without even bothering to turn on the lights too busy pressing hands and lips to every bit of each other’s skin they could. 

John had just chuckled flipping onto his side to meet her eyes, he reached out trailing his fingers along her bare stomach gently.

She closed her eyes humming contently at the touch of his rough hands, her own hand reaching out and tangling their fingers together.

“Well, I’ve never been very good at making friends,” he said.

There’s a million words he could use to answer Abby’s question. Companion? Too generic. His heart? Too dramatic. His world? Too much for anyone but Zee to hear. His constant, his touchstone? Only a sliver of it. His salvation? Probably, but he’ll never be truly saved.

He’s not sure how long he’s sitting there passing words through his mind, memories of all she is and will always be to him going by in flashes. It could be seconds or hours, he’s really not certain. It’s so quiet in the room he thinks he might be alone now, just the beeping sound of the monitor that tells him Zee’s hearts still beating making any sort of noise.

There’s a chance Abby’s given up on a response by the time he even looks up from where Zee’s eyes have begun to move at a rapid pace behind her closed eyelids.

Finally though he turns his head to find her still standing there watching them and settles on an answer.

“She’s my light,” he says before turning back and warming her hand between both of his. It’s a simple word, but it’s the only one he can think of that feels all encompassing, that feels right. Every corner of him is darkness and damnation, but she’s the light that always brings him back, guides him out.

“I’ve walked in darkness my entire life. And I’ve been at home there. But you, Zee? You’ve always been my light,” he said to her once on a bright morning while she lay exhausted beside him tangled in sheets after another night of saving his ass from damnation what seems like a lifetime ago. He wasn’t even sure she’d heard him at first, but she had her body shifting closer to his in bed her lips placing a soft kiss on his chest in response.

In a lot of ways to this day he thinks it’s the truest thing he’s ever said.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m working on a whole fic about John calling Zee his light so be on the lookout for that. 
> 
> tumblr: [alecmagnuslwb](https://alecmagnuslwb.tumblr.com/)


End file.
